Today we left home at 9.52am and travelled to Bracken Ridge and met up with Mary-Anne, my sister. She is travelling with us in her Nissan Patrol and Traveller Hurricane caravan.
We took the Gateway and travelled to Fassifern Reserve Rest Area, 5 kms east of Aratula. There we had morning tea and met up with Karen's brother in law Gary. He is retired and drove out along the highway hoping to find us or hear us on the CB radio. He had a hat for Karen.
After Fassifern we continued on the Cunningham Highway through Warwick then to Stanthorpe. We plan to stay until Sunday at the show grounds and partake of the Apple and Grape festival. $20 per night with power and water. Our site is great. At this stage there is hardly anybody close and it is a solar panel heaven. Unfortunately there is power and we don't need to use the solar panels. However there is an up side the air conditioner is working over time.
Friday 2/3/2012
Everyone was up early after a great night sleep. Karen was the first up and she went for a long walk around the Show grounds and down the hill nearly all the way into town. About 10am we drove to the main shopping centre. The girls stopped at every craft and hippie shop and I found one camping shop. The high light of the morning was waving to Lawrence Springborg in his electoral office. He actually waved back. Next door to his office was the CWA hall where we had a lovely scone with a little jam and cream. We then had a quick drive around town looking for a mysterious second hand shop that Karen once saw. We didn't find it. Then back to the caravan park for lunch and a nanna and grandad nap. At 4pm there was supposed to be an information session at the Old Tea Hall in the show grounds explaining what was happening during the festival. We went and there was not much going on so it was back to the caravan for a corona and preparing tea.
After tea, we were waiting for Mary-Anne's Family Group from Bracken Ridge to arrive. They were joining us for the Apple & Grape Festival. Actually, we found out about the Festival through them - they already had a booking so we just tagged along.
At 9pm the Group from Bracken Ridge started to arrive. There was another caravan and 4 tents in varying sizes. It was very exciting putting up the tents in the dark. Our little camping area had become Tent City
Saturday 3/3/2012
Karen, Mary-Anne and I went into Stanthorpe's main shopping centre for the Apple and Grape festival. We walked the town looking at stalls of crafts and things. It was very well setup with roads blocked and no traffic. There were thousands of people and I'm sure the stall holders did a roaring trade. My knee was getting sore and I went back to the caravan, but Karen and Mary-Anne stayed for the procession of floats down the main street. What we didn't know was that Karen's niece, Sarah was on one of the floats. She found out that we were in town from our daughter Sandra, and rang us. She came to the Show Grounds later in the day for a visit. It was lovely to catch up with her. Sarah teaches music and drama at the Warwick State High School and also at a dance studio in Stanthorpe 2 afternoons a week. Stanthorpe's weather was very unpredictable very cool at night needing jumpers and around ten in the morning starting to get very hot. Saturday the main day of the Apple and Grape festival was full of misty rain and cool.
Sunday 4/3/2012
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